Category Archives: Community Based Initiatives

Please join outstanding activists and panelists, Nancy Bereano, Martha Ferger, Gabe Shapiro and Nicole LaFave, and come share stories of how you’ve taken action for social justice. Free, open to everyone!

Saturday June 25th, 2016 – 2:00 to 4:30pm

The History Center in Tompkins County 401 E. State St., Suite 100, Ithaca, NY 14850

Sharing Our Stories of Action for Social Justice and Transformation

A series presented by The History Center in Tompkins County & The Dorothy Cotton Institute

Ferger, left, being arrested at the site of a proposed natural gas storage expansion in Schuyler County, fall 2014

ITHACA — Join us on Saturday June 25th for the second event in the series “Sharing Our Stories of Action for Social Justice and Transformation.” This series, done in partnership and collaboration with the Dorothy Cotton Institute, will focus on sharing personal narratives and oral histories that highlight individual contributions towards social change across a broad range of issues and social movements. At this event, four panelists will share their work for change and address what they had to overcome and what sustained them. After the panel, all will be invited to meet in small groups to share their personal stories of work for social change. Panelists: Nancy Bereano, Martha Ferger, Gabe Shapiro and Nicole LaFave.

Let us know if you’re coming via the Facebook Event Page and be sure to share it with your friends!

About the Presenters….

Nancy Bereanohas lived in Ithaca as a lesbian for 36 out of her 48 years here. She was the founding editor and publisher of Firebrand Books, a groundbreaking, award-winning, and nationally recognized lesbian and feminist press. Nancy has been an activist for most of her adult life, a troublemaker for all of it, and was instrumental in the passage of LGBT anti-discrimination legislation for the City of Ithaca and Tompkins County. She is a community representative on the City of Ithaca’s Workforce Diversity Committee, a member of ACTION (Activists Committed to Interrupting Oppression Now), and a participant and trained facilitator for Talking Circles on Race and Racism.

Martha Fergermoved to Dryden in 1955 at age 31 with her husband, Dr. John Ferger, and 3 young daughters. She has been active on a wide variety of public issues ever since, ranging from opposition to nuclear weapons testing in the early days to efforts to save Seneca Lake from gas storage more recently. You might have seen her picture (in a film by Earth Justice) being led away in handcuffs from a demonstration at Crestwood, or met her knocking on your door with the petition that helped persuade the Town Board make Dryden the first town in NY State to ban fracking. She has also been among the activists in Ithaca seeking to have cameras placed on all police in an effort to decrease and document abuse towards people of color and LGBTQI residents. Now, at age 92, she hopes to continue activities of this sort for a few more years. There are so many things in the world to worry about!

Gabe Shapiro is a rising third year at Hampshire College, studying energy, climate change and organizing. He works with groups across the Northeast fighting the build-out of fracking infrastructure.

Nicole LaFave is Program Coordinator, Community Service and Leadership Development at the Cornell Public Service Center. She was born and raised in Harlem, New York. At the Center for Culture, Race and Ethnicity at Ithaca College, Nicole found her passion for race relations in the US and began exploring strategies for denouncing oppressive systems. She decided to stay in Ithaca after graduating from IC because she believe this small city had the power and ambition to cultivate a space where true social change is more than possible but sustainable. She currently sits on the Ithaca City Community Police Review Board, is a co-founder and organizer of Black Lives Matter Ithaca, and is a newly elected member of the Ithaca City School District Board of Education. She holds a BA from Ithaca College in Sociology with a concentration in juvenile criminal studies, and race and ethnic relations. Her studies focused on equity issues, making the classroom and curriculum successful for children with complex needs through project-based learning.

Congo Square Market is open every Friday 4-8pm through September 4th. The Market’s mission is to build a stronger self-reliant local community, develop Southside’s economic base, and encourage community & personal health.

ABOUT CONGO SQUARE MARKET

Congo Square is an actual place in New Orleans. This sacred ground was first used by the Houma People and by slaves in the region as a place to enjoy a day of freedom. Africans used it as a place to maintain their true status as free people of Africa. Indigenous peoples and Europeans often joined in the celebration. Music, abolitionist organization, food, and dance were intertwined to enjoy this one-day-a-week festival.

Eight representatives from Tompkins County spent 5 inspiring days in October at the recent Tamarack Institute Collective Impact Summit in Toronto, Canada. Among the 300 participants were people from Canada and the Northwest Territories, USA, Kenya, New Zealand, Australia, and Denmark. The purpose of the summit was to help participants learn how to use Collective Impact to solve complex problems in their communities.

The team returned excited to share their insights about how to use Collective Impact. Each of the “Toronto 8” spoke to a big gathering at last week’s Building Bridges Brown Bag Lunch at the Tompkins County Library. They made the case for working together to create a “community-wide aspiration”–a big, hairy, audacious goal that can encompass all of the collective working groups that are underway:

Food Security & Justice

Renewable Energy

Kindergarten Readiness

College& Career Readiness

Jobs Pipeline

Re-Entry

Entrepreneurship

They emphasized that Collective Impact requires a new mindset and way of operating, and widening our focus beyond the success of individual programs to the effectiveness of the systems that impact us all. No, we don’t have to quit our jobs or shut down our organizations. But the process of weaving all of our efforts together will require a shift in our thinking. One big lesson emerged from the success or failure of Collective Impact initiatives in other places: it is crucial to include a really significant percentage of people who are most directly affected in the work of planning and decision making.

On May 13, 202 people attended a Community Forum to learn about Collective Impact processes creating big successes in various communities, and possible “big results” we might want to work on in Tompkins County.

41 organizations asked to be added to the Building Bridges Coalition list *

100+ new people have joined the Building Bridges Network listserve96% of you said you learned more about Collective Impact
96% of you said that CI is a direction that we should pursue as a community
97% of you said the time was worthwhile
89% of you said you would do your work differently as a result of the time we spent together.

Once again, a big THANK-YOU to

GreenStar staff support, use of The Space and coffee, tea, fruit salad, yogurt and pastries

MRC for the mini-bagels

GIAC for the cheese, crackers and cookies

Ithaca Bakery for the pastries

Moosewood Restaurant for the Brownies and Vegan Chocolate Cake

CCE staff for stuffing packets

Park Foundation for supporting this intro to Collective Impact

*If you would like your organization added, please contact Kirby Edmonds at 607/277-3401

You are invited to a half-day Community Forum
sponsored by the Building Bridges Initiative to:

get an update on the activities that have been going on in the community that are moving towards the vision we developed together

explore “Collective Impact” as a process for achieving big results toward the vision

Much has happened in the community since the first Building Bridges gathering back in November, 2011, but we still have a ways to go.

The lists of activities and possible big results in the attached flyer are only examples of the things we can explore together as we move forward and are not meant to be exhaustive.

Please respond by April 30th to let us know whether or not you can come to the forum (email- tfckirby@aol.com, phone: 277-3401).

You are receiving this invitation because you are an important community leader.

Please note: If you forward this message to someone else you’d like to invite, please emphasize that we do need to get RSVPs so we can plan for food and materials.

On behalf of the Building Bridges Planning Group, we hope you can come.

The “Building Bridges” initiative is a collaborative effort of The Dorothy Cotton Institute, the Whole Community Project, Sustainable Tompkins, CCE Environment Program, CCE Green Jobs Program, Ithaca College Commit to Change Initiative, Groundswell, Natural Leaders Initiative, the Multicultural Resource Center, Alternatives Federal Credit Union, Center for Transformative Action, Dryden Solutions, GreenStar Community Projects, the Sustainability Center, Get Your Green Back Tompkins, Cayuga Medical Center, Local First Ithaca, and others, to build, support and maintain a local movement in the Tompkins County region to create a “socially just and ecologically sound local economy”

Thanks to all who joined us, and to the many people who sponsored a ticket for so that someone else could attend. It was a remarkable evening, featuring a keynote from former Mayor of Atlanta Ambassador Andrew Young, Fellowship of Reconciliation Presentation of the 2013 Martin Luther King, Jr. Awards to human rights leaders and educators Ms. Dorothy Cotton and Dr. Vincent Harding, and a performance of Spirituals and Freedom Songs by the Dorothy Cotton Jubilee Singers.

We closed out the evening dancing to DJ Apia Awa.

On Tuesday, Dec. 10, the Dorothy Cotton Institute held our first DCI Gala and Dinner in honor of International Human Rights Day, and featured the presentation of the Fellowship of Reconciliation’s 2013 Martin Luther King, Jr. Peace Award to our distinguished guests, Dr. Vincent G. Harding and Ms. Dorothy F. Cotton, with inspiring remarks by the award recipients and Ambassador Andrew Young.

Over 200 people attended the event at the Trip Hotel, enjoying good food, great live jazz by Fe Nunn and friends, and Harry Aceto and friends, and a remarkable performance by the Dorothy Cotton Jubilee Singers. Our Master of Ceremonies was Cal Walker.

Our celebration began with a visit to the Greater Ithaca Activities Center by DCI National Advisor Dr. Harding and Ms. Aljosie Aldrich Knight, both of whom participated in the DCI’s 2012 delegation to the Israel and the West Bank. They graciously spent the afternoon at GIAC, speaking first with local activists, educators, and organizers, and then another two and a half hours with teens from New Roots Charter School and GIAC’s Conservation Corps. Their conversation with young people was truly remarkable.

All three of our speakers exhorted the audience not to wait for someone else, some celebrity or high-placed official, to lead the change we want to see in the world, but rather to rely on ourselves and take action to create the kind of world we need. Being in the presence of people whose courage, commitment to non-violence, and willingness to stay on the journey toward the realization of full human rights reminded us that we have progressed a long way toward freedom, but we still have a way to go.

At GIAC, Dr. Harding was asked by a student whether he and others in the Freedom Struggle were ever scared of the violence and danger down south. He shared that sometimes he and his colleagues were very scared, but that they never attempted to do things alone; when he was afraid, someone else would remind him that “You can do this.” They always had friends with them, and what kept them going when they felt like running away was both knowing that people had come before them in the struggle and sacrificed for his next generation, but more importantly, they knew that they had to keep going so that “you could be here today”–i.e., together, in an integrated gathering of students, sharing where we came from, what we want to be doing 20 years from now, and why, with pathways open to them that couldn’t be imagined back in the 60s.

Dr. Harding emphasized the great importance of knowing one’s background, learning our history, and becoming strongly grounded and nurtured in our own cultures and who we are, so that we can go forth into diverse, integrated settings and take leadership, sharing and exchanging our stories with people who are different from ourselves without trying to just be like them and losing ourselves.

Dr. Harding answered a question about the first time he met Martin Luther King, Jr. He described traveling to Montgomery, Alabama in a racially mixed group of 5 young ministers from his an integrated Mennonite church he founded in Chicago. They set out to test themselves as to whether they could prevail on this journey with their integrated group, meet Dr. King, and explore the possibility of establishing such a church in the south.

They looked up Dr. King in the phone book, called and spoke with Mrs. Coretta Scott King, and asked if they could meet her husband. She explained that he had just been hospitalized after being stabbed, and was now recuperating at home. She wasn’t sure he would be up to it, but that they could stop by and see. When they arrived at the door, they were invited to visit with MLK, Jr. in his bedroom. He was sitting up in bed in his bathrobe, and kept laughing and remarking that they had made it through Mississippi.

Dr. Harding explained to the young people at GIAC that at the time, he was 27 years old, and Dr. King was only 29. The image of these very young people who were doing extraordinary things in such violent and intolerable circumstances really made quite an impression, and challenged all of us to never do anything with our lives without knowing why.

Thanks to all of you who attended, who sponsored others to be able to attend, and who support the Dorothy Cotton Institute!

Please check out this piece from Fellowship of Reconciliation, posted before the Gala.